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THE LITTLE CHILDREN 
OF THE LUXEMBOURG 



HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS 




Class _^.=^_1 



Book_Lz 



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CopiglitI\?_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 
OF THE LUXEMBOURG 




'Then the chers blesses pass, and pain, none the less intense 

because it cannot be analyzed, grips little hearts. 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 
OF THE LUXEMBOURG 



BY 



HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS 

Author of "Paris Reborn" etc. 



WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 

BY HARRY B. LACmL\N 



PHILADELPHL\ 

THE JOHN C. \NTNSTON COMPANY 

1916 






Text and Photographs Copyright, 1916, by 
Rodman Wanamaker 

Copyright, 1916, by 

The Century Co. 

Copyright, 191C, by 

Harry B. Lachman 




2ISI7 



The author and the photographer acknowledge their 
indebtedness to the editors of the Ccnturi/ Maqazine for 
permission to republish this story. A few of the pictures 
were first published in the Century Magazine and the rest 
are now printed for the first time. 



'Ci.A453469 



List of Illustrations 

Then the chers blesses pass, and pain, none 
the less intense because it cannot be 
analyzed, grips little hearts". . .Frontispiece 



PAGE 



"The younger boys from the Lycee Mon- 
taigne are drilled seriously every day " . . 9 

" Children's feet and children's voices made 
the best noise of all" 1^ 

"A veteran of 1870, tracing the battle- 
field with his cane in the sand, explains 
the campaign in the Argonne" 17 

"Convalescent soldiers join in the training 
of the next generation" -1 

"Workmen have been laying a gas-main. 
The opportunity is splendid: real 
trenches are at hand" 25 

"Girls have their essential place in the 
play armies. Equality begins in the 
nursery" ^^ 

"War is revealed to one at every turn" ... 33 

"Here also is the waffle-man" 37 

"The wee women of France are not shelved 
by the masculine sex" 41 

" From the Irish mouth under Mimi's 
turned-up nose comes a chortle of 
. glee" ^^ 

7 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

"Like their big sisters, the httle girls have 
enlisted for Red Cross duty" 47 

"Dolls are wounded soldiers" 51 

"One has only to look at the children's 
faces " 55 

"With other fond parents, the Girl and I 
were standing outside the ropes" 59 

"Yachts are no longer sailing for a prize 
Battleships are going out after the 
enemy" 63 

"The grandfather who boasts of having 
rented boats to men today admirals is 
still good for twenty years" 67 

"The donkey shakes his head mournfully" 71 

"Big trees are fortresses" 73 

" First aid is given" 77 

"Boys who can be bossed are impressed 
into service as stretcher-bearers" 79 

"Home on eight days' furlough, after a year 
in the trenches " 83 

"How the permissionaires treasure the pre- 
cious moments with wife and babies ! " . . 85 

"The blind are learning, with hesitating 
footsteps, a new dependence" 87 



The Little Children of 
the Luxembourg 

ON a June afternoon seven years 
ago the Girl and I renewed 
with the Luxembourg what 
had been for her childhood and adoles- 
cent memories and for me a passing 
acquaintance. As w^e walked by the 
row of statues against the wall of the 
musee and skirted the tennis-courts to 
find a bench in the parterre, we .little 
realized that the Girl was to add 
motherhood memories, deeper and 
more precious, and that my acquaint- 
ance was to ripen into friendship. 

11 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

A few hundred yards away, in the 
direction of the Pantheon, a band was 
playing. From the opposite side of 
the parterre came the pom-pom of the 
guignol-msiii. Everywhere, right and 
left, near and far, children's feet and 
children's voices made the best noise 
of all. Wonderful it w^as to us that 
day. ^Ye were in dreamland; a spell 
we did not wish to attempt to analyze 
possessed us. The morning's express 
had brought us from Marseilles. Two 
weeks before, in the interior of Tur- 
key, we had been suffering the horrors 
of the Armenian massacre. A far cry 
from Asia to Europe, from savagery to 
civilization, from the devil in man to 
the God in child. That was the spell. 
We understand it in retrospect. Not 

12 




Children's feet and children's voices made the best 
noise of all." 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

the waltz of "La veuve joyeuse"; not 
flowers and trees and fountains; not 
seeing again, after a year under the 
shadow of Islam, people of our own 
kind; not a park and a bench, the old 
familiar blessings of Occidental city 
life, which one never appreciates until 
he has lived away from them. The 
little children of the Luxembourg! 
The devil might rage, but the world 
still belonged to God because of His 
children. The massacres were only a 
hideous nightmare; our suffering was 
intensified, and lasted, because we had 
regarded, them as reality. No experi- 
ence of evil, of pain, of bereavement 
can crush when there are children 
around. Life still holds everything; 
not some things, but everything, for 
15 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

in the renewing of life nothing is 
lost. 

A pair of youngsters in their twen- 
ties could hardly have appreciated this 
great truth had it not been for the 
fact that a baby-carriage stood beforei 
them as they sat under the spell of the 
little children of the Luxembourg. It 
was our first purchase at the Bon 
Marche that morning. We had bub- 
bled over with pleasure and pride 
when we had it taken right down in 
the elevator and out on the rue de 
Sevres. For there was something to 
put in it, and there she lay, our three- 
weeks-old baby, who had already trav- 
eled in three continents. 

A wee apartment was found in the 
rue Servandoni, two minutes' walk 
16 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

from the Luxembourg. We furnished 
it in one hour for five hundred francs- 
all the money we had in the world. 
That was why I had to write something 
quickly. While the Girl was getting 
supper that evening, I unpacked my 
type-writer from its battered leather 
case, drew a sigh of relief that nothing 
was broken, and put it on our one and 
only table. Before giving way to 
plates and knives and forks, there was 
time to make a start at least. I typed 
out the title, "The Little Children of 
the Luxembourg," and just then the 
Girl called for me to run out and buy 
some butter. Back at my work, I 
started in: "Itwas— " A can of peas 
had to be opened. The Girl confessed 
that this was a mystery to her, and I 
19 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

found that it was a trick requiring 
time and thought on her husband's 
part. Then the table was needed, and 
the type-writer went to the floor. 

It ended there: other things came 
up. In those days continuity of effort 
had no place in the vision of a litter' 
ateur who saw the goal shining so 
brightly that the way to get there was 
obscured. After all, there was nothing 
particular to say about the little chil- 
dren of the Luxembourg without grind- 
ing it out, and the Girl sympathized 
with the litterateur in confusing inspi- 
ration and application. Editors, who 
appreciated neither poems nor essays, 
were anathema to her, too. 

Seven years! Bored with the gen- 
eral "bum feeling" of a cold in the 

20 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

head, the litterateur, who had evolved 
into one of a hundred newspapermen 
in Paris, was trying to find some novel 
form of amusement to while away an 
afternoon's absence from his office. 
He picked up a bundle, labeled "Arti- 
cles to *be written," which had not 
been untied since the golden days of 
the rue Servandoni. What could be 
more fun than to go through them? 
The paper came to light: "The Little 
Children of the Luxembourg. It 
.was — " 

With the years, pleasant changes 
had come, and I knew more about the 
little children of the Luxembourg, sum- 
mer and winter, spring and autumn. I 
knew more because the three-weeks- 
old traveler in three continents was 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

now the eldest of four. A brother and 
sister played with her in the Luxem- 
bourg, and there was still a three- 
weeks-old baby for the carriage. I 
knew more because there is no truth 
in the old maid and bachelor saying 
that parents think only of their own 
children, and have no time for, or 
interest in, those of others. Let spin- 
sters and bachelors talk all they want; 
they don't know, that's all. The more 
kiddies you have yourself, the more 
you appreciate other people's kiddies. 
And other people who have kiddies do 
not need to be assured that this is 
true. 

To grown-ups the Luxembourg 
means a delightful and embarrassing 
choice of places to sit. Every bench. 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

from the pear-garden at the rue Vavin 
entrance to the fountain of Catharine 
de' Medici over by the Odeon, has seen 
me unfold my "Temps" of a summer 
evening with a sigh of contentment as 
I sniffed flowers and grass and leaves. 
Every nook from the kiosk of the old 
woman who sells the best hoops at the 
upper rue de Vaugirard entrance to the 
shady wall of the Ecole des Mines by 
the BouF Miche' has welcomed me to 
the joy of an undisturbed hour with 
my book. And yet, when I go to the 
Luxembourg, I never know where to 
sit. Even an EngUshman would find 
it hard to become wedded to one spot 
where all are alluring. Oh, this bother 
of choice! I suppose that is why I 
have never resented the mob of a 
27 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

Sunday afternoon; for then the prob- 
lem of choice does not confront you. 
If there is a place, you sit where that 
place is. 

To children the Luxembourg means 
a delightful choice of things to do, and 
choice is not a problem to them. 
They are free from the torture of deci- 
sion. What comes first they tackle, 
and then go on to the next thing. If 
children did not get tired once in a 
while, perpetual motion would have 
been discovered outside of the labora- 
tory. As it is, parents are nearer find- 
ing it than physicists. It is lucky for 
me that the older I get the less inspired 
the "Temps'' is, and the less I feel the 
necessity of reading all the news for 
fear something escapes me. It is 

;28 




■ Girls have their essential place in the play armies. 
Equality begins in the nursery."' 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

lucky for me that the older I get the 
less I hold to book knowledge. After 
all, the summum honum of much knowl- 
edge (in the objective form) is to feel 
that it really is a weariness to the 
flesh. The infallible sign of intelligent 
growth in wisdom is an increasing 
inability to take oneself seriously. If 
I regarded my duties and my own 
importance in the scheme of things as 
I used to when I first thought I was 
shouldering responsibilities, I should 
long ago have broken down under their 
burden. Physicians have made much 
money by having to bother with peo- 
ple who have never come to themselves. 
But would they not rather have done 
without the fees ? The near-sick are the 
soul-squeezers of the practitioner. 
31 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

What I wrote about sitting in the 
Luxembourg refers to the past and not 
to the present. I am glad that I feel 
as I do about the "Temps," for there 
is no longer one wee baby who "stays 
put" in her carriage and demands 
attention only from her mother. Three 
husky, rollicking children claim me the 
very moment I appear. I might avoid 
them, but, funnily enough, I do not 
want to, even to secure for myself the 
luxury of sitting on a bench, biting the 
end off a carre a deux sous, and read- 
ing. The match-box stays in my 
pocket; so does the "Temps." I 
am taken in tow, and appropriated 
for definite purposes; then begins 
the round that never tires. It is 
always the same; but it never tires. 

32 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

First the beehives, where the story 
must be told of how honey is made 
and why the honeymakers had better 
be left untouched. That doesn't last 
long. Children are as keen for action 
in papa as editors for action in stories. 

The alUe leading from the rue de 
Fleurus to the grand hassin means 
nothing to the tourist. His eyes are 
fixed upon the dome of the Pantheon, 
framed by the half-mile of foliage that 
shuts out everything else. He looks 
neither to the right nor to the left until 
he reaches the parterre. To the chil- 
dren that parterre is the end of a half- 
day's journey, for here, in the allee, 
are the balangoirs, the chevaux de hois 
steeplechase, the chevaux de hois merry- 
go-round, and the guignol. Here also 

35 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

are the kiosks for pain d' Spice and the 
waffleman. 

Were you justifying your existence 
by the work you did today in your 
atelier? Not a bit of it! The chil- 
dren show you how absurd a thought 
that was. The world would wag on 
just as well without your work; not a 
living soul would miss it. But here, 
to three precious living souls, papa's 
strong arms to put them on the wooden 
horses are indispensable, and more 
indispensable still the sous from papa's 
purse to pay for the fun. Titine and 
Lloyd and Mimi choose their steeds. 
Titine, ever a cautious baby, has a 
preference for Madame Giraffe. The 
neck is thin enough to give a feeling of 
security, since little arms can encircle 
36 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

it, and this is more than can be said 
of other animals who have been tried 
and passed up. From the first day he 
made bold to ride, Lloyd has been fas- 
cinated by the very yellow Monsieur 
Lion, whose neck is frozen in a turn, 
and who grins reassuringly at his 
rider. Only this last month has Mimi 
graduated from the ignominious safety 
of the chariot with red plush cushions, 
which rests on half -swans, to the dar- 
ing of a whole animal. She is trying 
them all, and has not settled upon one 
to cling to. But already — how imme- 
diately independence asserts itself! — 
she resents the straps, those shameful 
symbols of babyhood. 

The merry-go-round, however, is by 
no means just for fun. Play with 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

children has invariably a serious pur- 
pose, which is more than can one say 
of work with their elders. Grown-ups 
have lost the art of play because they 
have forgotten how to be sincerely 
serious — serious by instinct. We are 
serious by effort; ergo, we are clumsy 
and half-hearted in our play. It is 
heresy, dreadful heresy, to say it, I 
know, but I often think that here is 
the secret of the craving for alcohol. 
Man wants to get away from his stu- 
pid, habitual self as evolved, the sad 
product of repression of instinct and 
expression of volition. 

When the music starts, Titine and 
Lloyd fall to grabbing rings and hop- 
ing for the brass one, which means a 
stick of candy. Look at their faces, 
40 




**The wee women of France are not shelved by 
the masculine sex." 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

and be convinced thai children are 
lucky wild birds until they get in the 
cage of our educational system, bred 
of convention and breeder of medioc- 
rity. From the Irish mouth under 
Mimi's turned-up nose comes a chortle 
of glee that cannot be drowned by the 
wheezy organ-pipes. Her freckles 
shine with joy, and her red hair is 
tossed in the pride of being 'way up 
there on the great big zebra. She 
looks down with contempt on fright- 
ened babies who refused to ride, and 
lost 

The good they might have won 

By fearing to attempt. 

The mother of the merry-go-round 
is wise in her many days and three 
generations. She learned long ago not 

43 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

to discriminate, and that is why she 
has made her fortune in catering to 
children. A stick of candy goes with 
the brass ring, but every other kid gets 
a stick of candy, too. The worst 
break I ever made in my Hfe occurred 
six months ago. I doubt if I have yet 
been quite forgiven for it. I had been 
off to the other end of Europe on one 
of my too frequent trips, and the first 
day at the Luxembourg, after my 
return, I had forgotten all about those 
sticks of candy. I lifted Lloyd from 
his horse, and, heedless of the protest 
he was trying to make, took him out of 
the inclosure before, from his burst of 
heartbreaking sobs, I realized that I 
had forcibly prevented him from going 
to the old woman for his candy. I 
44 






From the Irish mouth under Mimi's tumed-up 
nose comei a chortle of glee." 




'Like their big sisters, the little girls have enlisted 
for Red Cross duty." 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

simply could not make it up to him. To 
my son I was as the Germans are 
to the Belgians. Atonement is not in 
a child's scheme of things, and he 
indignantly refused a franc's worth of 
sweets, purchased despite his mother's 
dismay at a near-by kiosk. I ought 
not to have done it, that was all. I 
ought not to have done it. 

The swings and steeplechase and 
merry-go-round are only the beginning 
of the afternoon's work. Now comes 
the guignol, greatest of Paris institu- 
tions, and unique joy of Paris children. 
We leave behind the stirring music of 
the merry-go-round, and with each 
thump of the drum we are approach- 
ing, joy is manifest from feet to curls. 
Wee hands clasp big sous, and the 
49 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

children are off along the well-known 
way, mingling with other tabliers, to 
push in beyond the magic rope for a 
seat at the Punch and Judy show. 
There is no "first come, first served" 
at the guignol. There is no fear of 
not getting a good place. Monsieur 
and Madame know their business as 
well as the most famous impresario. I 
doubt not that many a New York or 
London manager would be glad to 
have their bank-account. The seats 
are all in front of the stage and grad- 
uated. There is no need for signs. 
Kids cannot read signs. But the seats 
are none the less reserved for their 
particular clientele. Big kids never 
crowd in ahead of babies. From the 
three-year-olds in front, they mount to 

50 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

the ten-year-olds in the rear rows. 
When there is room, a few grown-ups 
are allowed in. 

I shall not attempt to tell abouc the 
show, nor how it is received by the 
children. An impression of the guignol 
cannot be conveyed by writing or by 
painting. Only the camera catches it. 
Standing outside the ropes and listen- 
ing to the same old story and watch- 
ing the same commonplace antics of 
Punch, Judy, the policeman, the thief, 
the soldier, the maid-servant the 
butcher's boy, and the pawnbroker, I 
wonder by myself how and why it 
amuses for six or seven years, certainly 
for four or five. Perhaps variety is 
not the spice of life with children. But 
the proof of the pudding is in the eat- 
53 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

ing. One has only to look at the 
children's faces and listen to their 
laughter to realize that Punch and 
Judy and the others are '* delivering 
the goods." Titine is in her fifth guig- 
nol year, and still comes for sous. 
Mimi is just starting, and her eyes 
brighten, and her laugh rings out to 
prove that it works, and is working, 
with the thousands of Titines and 
Lloyds and Mimis who give their sous 
to the man with the drum. 

With other fond parents, the Girl 
and I were standing for the several 
hundredth time (I ought to begin to 
be saying the thousandth now) outside 
the ropes. 

"How do they get away with it.^" I 
asked the Girl. "Day in and day out, 

54 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

year in and year out, generation in and 
generation out, how do they find 
enough change of topic to interest the 
same clientele?" 

The Girl looked at me with amused 
tolerance. 

"You write a newspaper article 
every day," she said. "How do you 
get away with it.^ Why do your 
readers stand for it.'^ There are only 
seven keys on the piano, and yet all 
the music in the world has come from 
them. It is a question of permuta- 
tions and commutations — endless, just 
as in algebra." 

Now we make for the grand hassin, 
where the greatest sport of all is await- 
ing us. As w^e pass under the trees to 
reach the steps, the Girl and I look 
57 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

with interest at the clever croquet the 
old men are playing. We must stop 
a minute to watch some of the strokes. 
It is as skilful as billiards, this game, 
and nowhere can you see such split 
shots as here, and as in golf the haz- 
ard of uneven ground prevents the 
game from becoming too mathemati- 
cal. But the kids tug immediately. 
To them the game is stupid. Titine 
has more than once expressed her 
astonishment and disgust that grown- 
ups should so waste their time. 

The w^orld of kiddies is all their own, 
peopled with little folk. When they 
walk with their elders, they are obliv- 
ious to grown-ups. But they never 
miss seeing children, and they have the 
keenest interest in all other members 
58 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

of their world. A child would no more 
fail to see other children in the street 
than a dog would fail to see other 
dogs. I have tested this. 

'Whom did you see in the Luxem- 
bourg today, Titine?" 

"Lots and lots of kids. There was 
a little boy—" and so on for half an 

hour. 

*'Were there many grown-ups? Tell 

me now about the grown-ups you 
saw." Silence and an embarrassed 

laugh. 

"Papa's a joke," declares Mimi. 

That settles it. 

Since the war began, however, there 

is an important exception in Paris to 

this axiom of child psychology. The 

children have taken the soldiers into 

61 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

their world. So it is that, when we go 
down the steps to the grand bassin, 
the two soldiers on guard in front of 
the palais are spied. 

''Voila les sentinelles!'' cries Titine. 
Lloyd salutes. Mimi yells, '^ Soldats! 
soldats! la, maman! la, papa!'' Stand- 
ing rigidly by their guerites, with fixed 
bayonets gleaming in the sun, their 
presence contrasts strangely with the 
background of flowers and the fore- 
ground of hoop-rolling girls and boat- 
sailing boys. They have always been 
in front of the Palais du Senat, but 
now they seem different in their habit- 
ual setting. Their immobility, their 
very presence here, is unreal. How 
can valid men be spared from what we 
call "out there," fighting for France? 

62 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

I had not intended to speak of the 
war. One always resolves, when he 
writes, to forget the war. But even 
in the Luxembourg, when you are 
with, and engrossed in, the children, 
the war enters, for it is an essential 
factor in our life. It is our war. We 
cannot rid ourselves of the thought of 
it, of the burden of it. The children 
accept it, and, as with all the serious 
things of Hfe, incorporate the war in 
their play. 

Boats there are in the grand hassin, 
all sorts and conditions of them, just 
as one always finds them on a good 
afternoon when the wind is blowing 
gently. And eager faces are gazing 
intently from the stone coping. But 
the game is different in these days of 
65 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

war. Yachts are no longer sailing for 
a prize. Battleships are going out 
after the enemy. The hunt is one- 
sided, however, as few boys are will- 
ing to sacrifice themselves for the com- 
mon good by having their boats fly an 
enemy flag. In the grand bassin the 
German flag is as scarce as it is in the 
North Sea. 

If physical activity be a criterion, 
the grandfather who boasts of having 
rented boats to men today admirals in 
the Mediterranean and members of the 
cabinet is still good for another twenty 
years. When Lloyd goes to choose his 
boat in the fascinating shipyard, I 
often chat with the ship-owner. He 
never fails to tell one that he stopped 
growing old w^hen he reached sixty. 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

Today he asked his new joke (new, 
since he has been repeating it for only 
fifteen months, while the joke before 
the war had been tried for fifteen 
years) . 

"Let me see, you want a German 
boat, is it not?" he asks, bending over 
with a toothless grin. 

"No!" shouts Lloyd, tense almost 
to tears. "The Germans are — " 

Why repeat it all.^ I try to remain 
cosmopolitan and to call myself a 
neutral, but my son is neither cosmo- 
politan nor neutral. The letter of 
boats nods approvingly, and pats the 
boy on the back. Lloyd, mollified, 
admonishes him with a ''Pas de 
blague!'' For a franc Lloyd gets a boat 
big enough to require papa's assistance. 
69 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

From naval warfare we turn to join 
the army. The donkeys, drawing 
empty carts, shake their heads mourn- 
fully. They do not understand their 
loss of popularity, which, I find, is due 
to their exploiter's lack of appreciation 
of child psychology. Early in the war 
the children saw that the donkey-man 
would stand for no nonsense. He did 
not want his carts used as ambulances, 
dragged around after the advancing 
battle-line; so, save on Sundays, his 
pickings are poor. He would gladly 
be a good sport now, but the children 
have boycotted him. He is even 
suspected of being a Boche. 

We climb the steps of the parterre, 
and walk along the alleys of the Obser- 
vatoire on our homeward w^ay. Every- 
70 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

where the children have organized 
themselves into armies. Big trees are 
fortresses. It is possible, even inside 
the iron gates, to storm redoubts and 
trenches. For workmen have been 
laying a gas-main from the rue de 
Vaugirard to the Boul' Miche'. Mer- 
cifully they are doing it slowly. The 
opportunity is splendid; real trenches 
are at hand. 

Near the upper gate a group of 
older boys (older means from ten to 
thirteen) is gathered around a veteran 
of 1870, who, tracing the battle-field 
w4th a cane in the sand, explains the 
campaign in the Argonne. Another 
veteran drills seriously every day the 
younger boys from the Lycee Mon- 
taigne. Convalescent soldiers join 
75 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

in the training of the next genera- 
tion. 

Girls have their prominent and 
essential place in the play armies. The 
wee women of France are not shelved 
by the masculine sex. Equality begins 
in the nursery. Jumping-ropes and 
hoops have been laid aside for happier 
days. Even diabolo is losing ground. 
Tennis-rackets gather dust on the 
upper shelf of the hall closet. Dolls 
are wounded soldiers, and doll car- 
riages, if used at all, are ambulances. 
Like their older sisters, the little girls 
of the Luxembourg have enlisted for 
Red Cross duty, and follow the armies 
to give first aid on the battle-field. 
Park benches are improvised hospitals. 
Set forth on them, bottles, cotton, and 
76 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

bandages show their stern reahty of 
the play. The nurses wear the regu- 
lation headgear, with the cross upon 
the forehead. Smaller boys, who can 
be bossed, are impressed into service 
as stretcher-bearers. 

The children reflect the spirit of the 
nation and the work of the nation. 
The war has first place in the minds 
of all; it has first place in the efforts 
of all. Is not play at its best an imi- 
tation of what the grown-ups are 
thinking and doing? 

And in the Luxembourg the other 
side of the war is revealed to one at 
every turn. War means glory and 
immortality only to poets and orators; 
to the rest of the world it means 
suffering and death. I am reluctant 

81 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

to go with my children to the Luxem- 
bourg these days, for it seems hke 
flaunting my immunity in the face of 
everybody. Other fathers are at the 
war — or are not. Children's guardians 
are grandfathers. Black is the preva- 
lent color in dresses. 

Soldiers there are a-plenty. Some, 
vigorous and bronzed, are permission- 
aires, home on eight-days' furlough 
after a year in the trenches. How 
they treasure the precious moments 
with wife and babies. But by far the 
greater number in uniform are wounded 
and convalescents. In every allee one 
meets the maimed on crutches; or the 
blind, who are learning with hesitat- 
ing footsteps a new dependence on 
cane or loving arm. As they pass, the 

S2 




Home on eight days' furlough, after a year in the 
trenches." 



%\^ 




..^^ 





'The blind are learning, with hesitating fuotsteps, 
a new dependence." 



OF THE LUXEMBOURG 

chers blesses, the children pause in 
their play and salute them silently. 
Tear-filled eyes and lips that have 
scant respite from quivering bear wit- 
ness to the children's knowledge of 
what war means. They are not 
allowed to idealize war as they would 
instinctively do; in the enthusiasm of 
earnest play the glory of war should 
be uppermost. But then the chers 
blesses pass, and pain, none the less 
intense because it cannot be analyzed, 
grips little hearts. 

Were it not for the very fact itself 
of little children in the Luxembourg, 
this would be too sad to write about. 
The blessing, the healing virtue, the 
inspiration of the Luxembourg is not 
in flowers and trees, in fountains and 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

fresh air. It is in the children, the 
hope of the nation. 

So when a young woman passes, 
carrying a dog and cooing to it, one 
has reason to beheve that a heart is 
lacking, else it would break. 



90 




/"-'■ -'^ 



